Contentions

Charles Lane is the latest to spot the Obami’s double standards. He compares the administration reaction to Israel’s apartment expansion with its reaction to a deliberate Chinese provocation:

In Beijing Sunday, China’s premier, Wen Jiabao, launched an anti-U.S. tirade that made the president’s objective of economic harmony with Beijing seem even more unattainable than a comprehensive Middle East peace.

Rejecting President Obama’s rather tepid call, delivered just days earlier, for a “market-oriented” Chinese currency policy, Wen accused the U.S. of “trade protectionism,” alleging that Washington wanted to force the Chinese yuan up, and the dollar down, “solely for the purpose of increasing one’s own exports.”

This, as Lane explains, “was not only a direct sneer at the president — it was an insult to his intelligence, and everyone else’s for that matter.” What was Obama’s reaction? “Officials look forward to ‘an open channel of communication … and fostering a good bilateral relationship,’ a State Department spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.”

Totally different, you say? Why yes, Israel is a small, vulnerable democracy. China is a huge, powerful dictatorship. In the Obami worldview, there simply is no question about who gets the kid-glove treatment.